Speaker 1: Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
Speaker 1: and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised. On Palm Sunday,
Speaker 1: fifteen fifty four, Elizabeth Tudor, half sister of the Queen
Speaker 1: Mary the First, was brought to be imprisoned at the
Speaker 1: Tower of London. The tide was too low for Elizabeth
Speaker 1: to enter through a watergate, and so she crossed a
Speaker 1: drawbridge past rows of armed guards and the squawking, growling
Speaker 1: royal menagerie. But the lions roaring and baring their teeth
Speaker 1: wasn't the most frightening sight that the young royal princess suffered.
Speaker 1: On her way to the inner ward of the tower,
Speaker 1: where she would be staying, she passed the scaffolding where,
Speaker 1: just weeks earlier, her cousin, Lady Jane Gray, had lost
Speaker 1: her head. The scaffolding remained erect at the ready to
Speaker 1: claim more victims. Elizabeth had been implicated in a plot
Speaker 1: against her sister, the Queen. The plot has become known
Speaker 1: as the Wyat Rebellion, in uprising of major landowners and
Speaker 1: noblemen who would converge on London and attempt to overthrow
Speaker 1: the Catholic Mary the First before her wedding to the
Speaker 1: dreaded foreigner Prince Philip of Spain, replacing her with the
Speaker 1: next in line, Elizabeth. But the rebellion had failed, and
Speaker 1: the conspirators that hadn't fled were captured and interrogated. It
Speaker 1: was almost certain that Elizabeth had known about the rebellion beforehand,
Speaker 1: and now her sister Mary was determined to mount enough
Speaker 1: evidence to prove that Elizabeth was guilty of treason, a
Speaker 1: charge that would lead to her head on the chopping block.
Speaker 1: Elizabeth was certainly aware how dire her circumstances were, how
Speaker 1: precariously close she was to death, But even if she wasn't,
Speaker 1: the very rooms that she was imprisoned in would have
Speaker 1: reminded her. The chambers in the inner ward of the
Speaker 1: tower were the same where her mother, Anne Boleyn had
Speaker 1: been brought before her own execution, before King Henry the
Speaker 1: Eighth had charged her with treason and had a Calais
Speaker 1: swordsman slice her head from her pretty white neck. The
Speaker 1: question was whether her daughter would now suffer the same fate,
Speaker 1: And then what had only been nightmare became manifest in reality.
Speaker 1: The Lieutenant Master Bridges received the document that would seal
Speaker 1: Elizabeth's fate. Only a few days into Elizabeth's stay at
Speaker 1: the Tower of London, a warrant for her execution had
Speaker 1: been delivered. I'm Danish Wartz and this is noble blood.
Speaker 1: Mary Tudor's ascension to the throne in the summer of
Speaker 1: fifteen fifty three had been triumphant before her half brother,
Speaker 1: King Edward the sixth died at only fifteen. He and
Speaker 1: his advisers had attempted to rewrite the order of succession
Speaker 1: and place Edward's cousin, Lady Jane Gray, on the throne,
Speaker 1: which would exclude both of his half sisters Mary and
Speaker 1: Elizabeth from the line, despite the wishes of the late
Speaker 1: King Henry the eighth. But Mary Tudor galvanized her support
Speaker 1: and marched into London triumphant with Elizabeth at her side,
Speaker 1: as the powers opposing her crumbled. But that sense of
Speaker 1: triumph and popular support for Queen Mary the First would
Speaker 1: not last very long. Mary was thirty seven years old
Speaker 1: when she became queen, and though medical progress today has
Speaker 1: made it happily possible to bear children at that age
Speaker 1: or older, by Tudor standards, the possibility of Mary having
Speaker 1: an air was a rapidly dwindling possibility. Mary knew that
Speaker 1: she needed to get married extremely quickly, not only on
Speaker 1: the chance that she might be able to get pregnant,
Speaker 1: but also because Mary fundamentally believed that as a woman,
Speaker 1: she needed a man by her side to rule the kingdom.
Speaker 1: There were certain aspects of her extremely early reign, like
Speaker 1: at her coronation, where she declined dubbing knights herself and
Speaker 1: instead assigned the role to a male courtier, that indicate
Speaker 1: a fundamental lack of conviction with regards to what a
Speaker 1: female monarch could do. Mary getting married have been all
Speaker 1: well and fine in theory, but Mary's choice of husband
Speaker 1: would reveal itself to be the fundamental blunder of her reign.
Speaker 1: Her advisers and parliament wanted her to marry an Englishman.
Speaker 1: In November, a parliamentary delegation came to Mary to formally
Speaker 1: request it. The ideal candidate in mind, the unspoken front
Speaker 1: runner was Edward Courtney, recently restored Earl of Devon, who,
Speaker 1: like Mary, was a great grandchild of King Edward the Fourth.
Speaker 1: But Mary had another husband in mine, Philip of Spain,
Speaker 1: the son of the Holy Roman Emperor. In order to
Speaker 1: understand why Mary would make such an unpopular choice, I
Speaker 1: think it's worth rewinding a bit to remember just how
Speaker 1: tumultuous Mary's childhood was. Her father was, of course, King
Speaker 1: Henry the Eighth, and her her mother was Catherine of Aragon,
Speaker 1: his first wife, a Spanish princess. When Mary was about
Speaker 1: eleven years old, her father decided that he wanted to
Speaker 1: pursue Anne Boleyn and annul his marriage to Catherine, which
Speaker 1: meant illegitimizing Mary. Overnight, she went from princess to bastard,
Speaker 1: separated from her beloved mother and isolated from the father
Speaker 1: who once adored her but began treating her with outright contempt.
Speaker 1: Her lifeline throughout this period was the Spanish ambassador. Her
Speaker 1: greatest ally became the Holy Roman Emperor, who was advocating
Speaker 1: to preserve his aunt Catherine's marriage and keep Mary legitimate. So,
Speaker 1: even twenty years later, half Spanish, Mary still identified with
Speaker 1: her Spanish ancestry and still trusted her Habsburg family. Mary's
Speaker 1: chosen husband, promoted and celebrated by the Habsburg ambassadors, Mary trusted, was,
Speaker 1: as I said, the Holy Roman Emperor's son Philip was
Speaker 1: twenty six years old, handsome and virile. Mary was queen
Speaker 1: now and her mind was made up. She managed to
Speaker 1: strong arm Parliament and her counsel into accepting her decision,
Speaker 1: but the public would be another story. It probably feels
Speaker 1: obvious why people were against the idea of their queen
Speaker 1: marrying a foreigner who would become king. After all, a
Speaker 1: husband has power over his wife, so this foreigner would
Speaker 1: just be lording over all of them. Was England going
Speaker 1: to become just another habsburg state, a piggybank to fund
Speaker 1: their expensive European wars? As the historian David Starkey points out,
Speaker 1: there was also a specific context to the anti foreigner
Speaker 1: sentiment at this time. The lower classes might have always
Speaker 1: been xenophobic, but it was actually King Henry the Eighth
Speaker 1: and his break from the Catholic Church that contributed to
Speaker 1: nationalistic pride among the upper class and nobility too. As
Speaker 1: Starkey writes, quote Henry's emphasis on England as an island empire,
Speaker 1: standing independent and alone against a papal Antichrist on the
Speaker 1: one hand, and Protestant rebels and heretics on the other,
Speaker 1: helped make xenophobia intellectually and politically respectable among the elite
Speaker 1: as well end quote, and so rumors of Mary's upcoming
Speaker 1: marriage to a hated Spanish prince began sowing seeds of
Speaker 1: discontent that would quickly bloom into outright rebellion. Though Thomas
Speaker 1: Wyatt wasn't really the leader of the rebellion that bears
Speaker 1: his name, because it is known as the Wyatt Rebellion,
Speaker 1: it feels worth talking a little bit about who he
Speaker 1: is and how he got to the point where he
Speaker 1: would raise troops and arms against the Queen of England.
Speaker 1: Wyatt was born around fifteen twenty one, the son of
Speaker 1: a famous courtier who's known for possibly introducing the sonnet
Speaker 1: to England and possibly having an affair with Anne Boleyn
Speaker 1: before she married King Henry. Though not much is known
Speaker 1: about this younger Thomas Wyatt's early life, it seems like
Speaker 1: he studied classical military strategy and moral philosophy before embarking
Speaker 1: on life as a soldier. There were a few early
Speaker 1: bouts of legal trouble which maybe reveal a less than
Speaker 1: strict adherence to the rule of law. In fifteen forty three, Wyatt,
Speaker 1: along with two of his friends, went on what I
Speaker 1: found delightfully described as a quote episode of aristocratic hooliganism,
Speaker 1: during which they drunkenly broke some windows and threw stones
Speaker 1: at sex workers down on the banks. Wyatt also got
Speaker 1: in trouble for eating meat on Fridays and on fast Days,
Speaker 1: which led to him being imprisoned in the Tower of
Speaker 1: London for a month. But none of that seems particularly notable,
Speaker 1: except in the ways it speaks to what would happen
Speaker 1: later in his twenties. Wyatt would be commissioned to lead
Speaker 1: one hundred men in the war against France. He purported
Speaker 1: himself incredibly well and was promoted to captain, and then
Speaker 1: he was knighted. During an attack on Hartlot Castle, he
Speaker 1: personally stormed the first gate and broke the door open,
Speaker 1: leading to him being commended.
Speaker 2: For his personal bravery. King Edward the sixth continued to
Speaker 2: pull England towards Protestantism, but when he died, his Catholic
Speaker 2: half sister Mary took over, determined to return the country
Speaker 2: to her faith. There has been plenty written about whether
Speaker 2: the motivation for the Wyatt rebellion was religious. Was Thomas
Speaker 2: Wyatt a devoted Protestant who saw overthrowing Mary as essential
Speaker 2: for preserving his choice of worship. The historians disagree about
Speaker 2: just how religiously motivated, how anti Catholic the rebellion was. Certainly,
Speaker 2: Wyatt's propaganda downplayed the anti Catholic angle, no doubt, trying
Speaker 2: to rally as much popular support as possible. When someone
Speaker 2: brought up the hope that they would restore Protestantism as
Speaker 2: a reason for the rebellion, Wyatt apparently replied, quote, you
Speaker 2: may not so much as name religion, for that will
Speaker 2: withdraw us from the hearts of many. You must make
Speaker 2: your only quarrel for overrunning by strangers. In other words,
Speaker 2: the anti Philip sentiment is the winning argument. Whatever religious
Speaker 2: goals Wyat might have privately held in his heart, he,
Speaker 2: like many others, was incensed by the approaching wedding of
Speaker 2: Queen Mary to a foreign prince. The question, then, was
Speaker 2: what was he going to do about it. In the
Speaker 2: fall of fifteen fifty three, a group of established Landed
Speaker 2: men with military experience, all likely Protestant, got together to
Speaker 2: make a plan. They landed on a rebellion that would
Speaker 2: consist of four individual uprisings across England that would all
Speaker 2: converge in London on March eighteenth, Palm Sunday of the
Speaker 2: next year, before Prince Philip was expected to leave from
Speaker 2: Spain in anticipation of his upcoming nuptials. Sir James Croft
Speaker 2: would lead his men from Herefordshire. Henry Gray, Duke of Suffolk,
Speaker 2: would rally the Midlands, Sir Peter Carew would come from
Speaker 2: the West, and Thomas Wyatt would come from Kent. It's
Speaker 2: hard to gauge exactly what they imagined the plan would
Speaker 2: be once they reached London. Certainly they assumed that the
Speaker 2: people would come out and rally behind them, but then
Speaker 2: what Even among the conspirators, there seemed to be disagreement
Speaker 2: about whether or not the goal would be to assassinate Mary,
Speaker 2: and it seems most likely that the plan was to
Speaker 2: put Elizabeth Tudor on the throne and marry her to Courtney.
Speaker 2: But it also sort of seems like Suffolk, the father
Speaker 2: of Lady Jane Gray, would have probably wanted his own
Speaker 2: daughter to be queen again. Later, once the rebellion failed,
Speaker 2: Wyatt would claim that he meant absolutely no harm to marry,
Speaker 2: that he only wanted to protest the advice of her
Speaker 2: Privy counselors and keep her from marrying a foreigner. But
Speaker 2: of course, once you're captured, you're going to want to
Speaker 2: frame your rebellion in as innocent a light as possible.
Speaker 2: But whatever their ultimate goal, the rebels would never make
Speaker 2: it that far. Word of the rebellion got out months
Speaker 2: before the scheduled uprising, and when Carew was summoned to
Speaker 2: a Privy Council meeting on January Tewod fifteen fifty four,
Speaker 2: the men knew that the proverbial jig was up. If
Speaker 2: they were going to move, it needed to be now.
Speaker 2: The other three planned arms of the rebellion were harmlessly doused,
Speaker 2: their leaders fled or captured, and only Wyatt was left.
Speaker 2: On January twenty six, hundred troops departed from London to
Speaker 2: meet him, under command of the then eighty year old
Speaker 2: Duke of Norfolk. The London contingent stood opposite Wyatt's men,
Speaker 2: and there was a moment before the groups engaged, But
Speaker 2: then a shout erupted through the London men. They cried,
Speaker 2: we are Englishmen. There were cheers, and the London men
Speaker 2: turned their royal white coats inside out to hide the
Speaker 2: royal insignias defecting to Wyatt's side, the people, it seemed,
Speaker 2: would join with him. Bolstered and buoyed by the support,
Speaker 2: Wyatt and his men marched toward London. It was with
Speaker 2: this encroaching threat that Queen Mary the First gave the
Speaker 2: speech of her career, appealing directly to her subjects. She
Speaker 2: publicly proclaimed quote, I cannot tell how naturally the mother
Speaker 2: loveth the child, for I was never the mother of
Speaker 2: any But certainly if a prince and governor may as
Speaker 2: naturally and earnestly love her subjects as the mother doth
Speaker 2: the child, then assure yourself that I, being your lady
Speaker 2: and mistress, do as earnestly and tenderly love and favor you.
Speaker 2: Mary managed to underplay the real fear among her people
Speaker 2: that you would be married to a hated foreigner, against
Speaker 2: the wishes of Parliament and her advisers, by saying quote,
Speaker 2: ye shall understand that I entered not into the treaty
Speaker 2: without advice of all our privy Council, and by assent
Speaker 2: of those to whom the King my father committed his trust.
Speaker 2: In the word of a queen, I promise and assure
Speaker 2: you that if it shall not probably appear before the
Speaker 2: Nobility and Commons in the High Court short of Parliament,
Speaker 2: that this marriage shall not be for the singular benefit
Speaker 2: and commodity of all the whole realm, That then I
Speaker 2: will abstain not only from this marriage, but also from
Speaker 2: any other whereof peril may insure to this most noble realm.
Speaker 2: Her appeal to the people worked. Even with the added defectors.
Speaker 2: Wyatt's troops numbered fewer than three thousand, and without London
Speaker 2: rising up to join him, there was very little realistic
Speaker 2: hope for success, and though Wyatt did advance by putting
Speaker 2: down a Government attack at Sharing Cross, when they reached
Speaker 2: Saint James, his group split into two factions, with his
Speaker 2: main body of rebels continuing along Fleet Street before finding
Speaker 2: Ludgate barred to them. Eventually, Wyatt and his men turned
Speaker 2: to face a cavalry commander who forced his surrender. Though
Speaker 2: the rebellion was not successful in the end, Mary was
Speaker 2: facing genuine danger. Historians do point out several points in
Speaker 2: the rebellion were only slightly different actions Wyat moving faster
Speaker 2: straight to London, or keeping his group together and attacking
Speaker 2: the Palace, where Mary was less than properly defended might
Speaker 2: have changed history, but alas Wyatt was brought to the
Speaker 2: Tower of London, where his interrogation began. The rebels had
Speaker 2: been planning to replace Mary, it seems, with her sister, Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: and Mary was determined to find the evidence that she
Speaker 2: was sure would prove her Protestant sister guilty of treason.
Speaker 2: Elizabeth knew that she was in trouble. Once the rebellion
Speaker 2: was put down, Mary summoned Elizabeth to life London, ostensibly
Speaker 2: to have her stay with Mary for her own protection,
Speaker 2: but obviously in order to get her into custody and
Speaker 2: prevent her from going into hiding. Elizabeth wisely declined the invitation,
Speaker 2: saying that she was too ill to travel. Mary called
Speaker 2: her sister's bluff, sending two physicians who determined that Elizabeth
Speaker 2: was in fact well enough to move to London, whether
Speaker 2: her illness was psychosomatic or not. Elizabeth was ill as
Speaker 2: she went by litter to the city, but perhaps knowing
Speaker 2: what she was facing, one can hardly blame her. The
Speaker 2: stress would have made me keel over right there. Mary
Speaker 2: refused to see Elizabeth when she arrived, and put Elizabeth
Speaker 2: immediately under guard in a small isolated apartment. When word
Speaker 2: came that Elizabeth would be moved to the Tower of London,
Speaker 2: Elizabeth understood that meant she would be one step closer
Speaker 2: to her death. Elizabeth begged to be permitted to write
Speaker 2: a letter to her sister, and even though they were
Speaker 2: losing the tide, her guard granted her that opportunity. Elizabeth
Speaker 2: wrote deliberately slowly, so that the boat would not be
Speaker 2: able to take her to the tower that day. It
Speaker 2: is not an overstatement to say that she was quite
Speaker 2: literally writing for her life. Quote if any ever did
Speaker 2: try this old saying that a king's word was more
Speaker 2: than another man's oath, I most humbly beseech your majesty
Speaker 2: to verify it to me, and to remember your last
Speaker 2: promise and my demand that I be not condemned without
Speaker 2: answer and due proof. Elizabeth pledged her loyalty to her
Speaker 2: sister and begged Mary to believe that she was entirely innocent.
Speaker 2: The letter, sometimes referred to as the Tide Letter, worked
Speaker 2: insofar as Elizabeth managed to delay enough for them to
Speaker 2: miss the tide, and Elizabeth was brought to the tower
Speaker 2: the next day, but Mary did not reply. The evidence
Speaker 2: against Elizabeth was thin, but it was there. Wyatt had
Speaker 2: written her a letter before the rebellion, and allegedly Elizabeth
Speaker 2: had replied, though pretty non committally, by sending a servant
Speaker 2: back to deliver a message in person. Copy of one
Speaker 2: of Elizabeth's letters had been given to the King of France,
Speaker 2: who would have, in theory, been backing the rebellion once
Speaker 2: Mary had been taken off the throne, and Elizabeth had
Speaker 2: apparently been making plans, allegedly at the rebels behest to
Speaker 2: move her household from Ashridge, where she was living, to Donnington,
Speaker 2: one of her other palaces that would have been a
Speaker 2: more Strateig stronghold. A few days after Elizabeth was put
Speaker 2: in the tower, her interrogation began. When questioned about the
Speaker 2: Donnington move, at first, Elizabeth said she didn't even remember
Speaker 2: having that palace. Elizabeth was at the time the second
Speaker 2: largest landowner in England, so you can't expect her to
Speaker 2: remember all of her houses. But eventually she conceded, quote, indeed,
Speaker 2: I do now remember that I have such a place,
Speaker 2: but I never lay in it in all my life.
Speaker 2: But as the interrogation continued and Elizabeth was presented with
Speaker 2: more evidence, including from Sir James Croft, one of the
Speaker 2: captured conspirators himself, Elizabeth countered saying, quote, as concerning my
Speaker 2: going onto Donnington Castle, I do remember that mine officers
Speaker 2: and you, Sir James Croft, had such talk. But what
Speaker 2: is that to the purpose, my lords, But that I
Speaker 2: may go to mine own houses at all times. After all,
Speaker 2: Elizabeth is correct on that count. It's not illegal to
Speaker 2: go to one of your own houses. When Tomas Wyatt
Speaker 2: finally went to the block on April eleventh, fifteen fifty
Speaker 2: four before he died, when he was speaking to the crowd,
Speaker 2: he declared that Cortney and Elizabeth were completely innocent of treason,
Speaker 2: but the priest on the scaffold, doctor Hugh Weston, interrupted
Speaker 2: him in a panic to try and undercut him to
Speaker 2: say actually, under interrogation he admitted differently, but cutting off
Speaker 2: a confession moments from death was not a good look
Speaker 2: for the priest or for the government. Though Wyat was executed,
Speaker 2: people witnessing the execution dipped handkerchiefs into his blood to
Speaker 2: keep as mementos, and his head, which was mounted on
Speaker 2: the gate as a warning to other traders, was actually
Speaker 2: stolen fairly quickly as a martyr relic. As I said,
Speaker 2: the material evidence against Elizabeth was pretty thin, she would
Speaker 2: later write in one of her more Yoda like verses,
Speaker 2: much suspected by me, nothing proved can be. But of
Speaker 2: course evidence doesn't always save someone from a beheading. Elizabeth's
Speaker 2: own mother, Anne Boleyn, was killed on trumped up charges.
Speaker 2: As Elizabeth waited in the tower, imprisoned, she knew that
Speaker 2: death was a very real possibility and that her fate
Speaker 2: was fundamentally out of her hands. And then her worst
Speaker 2: nightmares were made real. Allegedly, a death warrant came to
Speaker 2: the lieutenant at the tower, calling for Elizabeth's beheading, but
Speaker 2: as the story goes, the man decided to follow up
Speaker 2: to ensure that the order was correct, and he realized
Speaker 2: that the warrant had not in fact been signed by
Speaker 2: Queen Mary herself. If the warrant had come at all,
Speaker 2: it was just something of a dummy warrant, apparently written
Speaker 2: by Mary's chancellor to have ready just in case. And
Speaker 2: as some stories go, when Queen Mary heard that the
Speaker 2: warrant had been written without her consent, she was furious.
Speaker 2: The literal tide had saved Elizabeth from one extra night
Speaker 2: in the Tower of London, but the metaphorical tide saved
Speaker 2: her life. As it became clear that the evidence against
Speaker 2: her was flimsy and the crowds were growing dismayed at
Speaker 2: the bloodshed, it became apparent that Elizabeth's life would be spared. Gradually,
Speaker 2: Elizabeth's privileges of moving around the tower were increased, and finally,
Speaker 2: two months after she was escorted into the tower, Elizabeth
Speaker 2: was released to live under house arrest. Mary had survived
Speaker 2: the Wyatt Rebellion and her sister Elizabeth had survived its aftermath.
Speaker 2: That's the story of the Wyatt Rebellion. But keep listening
Speaker 2: after a brief sponsor break to hear about the rebellion's
Speaker 2: most famous supernatural supporter. Wyatt wasn't the only public voice
Speaker 2: against Queen Mary, the first marrying Philip of Spain. In
Speaker 2: early spring fifteen fifty four, a voice from nowhere, from
Speaker 2: beyond the grave began speaking from a wall in Aldersgate
Speaker 2: Street in London, denouncing Mary and Philip and speaking out
Speaker 2: against Catholic Mass and confession. It was a spirit, some
Speaker 2: supernatural power communicating directly with the people, sometimes referred to
Speaker 2: as the Voice or the bird in the wall. It
Speaker 2: was a strange phenomenon which allegedly attracted a crowd of
Speaker 2: thousands of people. It's unclear whether the voice was working
Speaker 2: in organized tandem with the planned rebellion or whether they
Speaker 2: just shared the same opinions on national politics. Eventually, the
Speaker 2: ruse was discovered. The voice in the wall was not
Speaker 2: a ghost. It was a young servant girl who had
Speaker 2: been smuggled in to a hollow wall. Her name was
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Croft, no relation to the Sir James Croft who
Speaker 2: had been meant to lead part of the rebellion. And
Speaker 2: though Elizabeth Croft was arrested, it was ultimately determined that
Speaker 2: she was just an innocent party working on behalf of others,
Speaker 2: and though she apologized, she wasn't ultimately punished. As a
Speaker 2: side note, if you like historical hoaxes, you should probably
Speaker 2: listen to another podcast I do called Hoax with an
Speaker 2: exclamation point. We just finished our first season and we
Speaker 2: covered plenty of spooks and spirits and pranks like this.
Speaker 2: Noble Blood is a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and
Speaker 2: Mild from Aaron Mankey. Noble Blood is hosted by me
Speaker 2: Dana Schwartz. Writers for Noble Blood are Hannah Johnston, Hannah Zwick,
Speaker 2: Paul Jaffey, Natasha Laski, and me Dana Schwartz. The show
Speaker 2: is edited and produced by Jesse Funk and Nomes Griffin,
Speaker 2: with supervising producer Rima il KLi and executive producers Aaron Manke,
Speaker 2: Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
Speaker 2: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 2: to your favorite shows.